Education, Culture and Entrepreneurship (original) (raw)

We examine how higher education and one dimension of national culture (individualist-collectivist orientation) are related to the ratio of opportunity/necessity entrepreneurship in a country. The research model is developed as: high education and individualism are positive determinants of the entrepreneurial activity, but only when the motivation for starting new ventures is opportunity or improvement and not when people do it for necessity. Using data from GEM, World Economic Forum's Global Competitiveness Report and Hofstede's cultural determinants for 57 countries for the years 2009, 2010 and 2011, we empirically test our model. The result shows that indeed, higher education and individualism are determinants for superior opportunity entrepreneurial activity when the levels of economic freedom, perception of corruption and property rights protection are controlled. High education levels and individualism do not necessarily need to be together as their interaction does not have any significant effect on opportunity driven entrepreneurship.